New forms of communication also come at expense
It occurred to me this week, and not for the first time, that all the new mediums of communication enabled by advancements in technology come at a certain expense. Emailing, text messaging, and IMing all provide quick and easy ways to reach people, send a message or get a quick answer to a question, and they have the potential to grossly boost workplace productivity. On the flip-side, however, as we become more comfortable communicating through these new mediums and, at the same time, more habitual in our behavior, they can easily begin to replace the phone call or lunch meeting as they require a far smaller investment of time. In my own experience, feeling as comfortable writing as I do speaking (if not moreso), I have fallen into the trap of sending an email to express myself on important matters, when a phone call or face-to-face discussion would have been more appropriate. None of the new "non-human" methods of communication can convey tone, feeling or personal affect the way a voice or facial expression can. As we embrace new technologies and all the benefits they offer, its important to remember the positive qualities of human interaction that only hearing someone’s voice or seeing their face can achieve.
NYC Taxicab confessionals
Tonight, on my way home, I grabbed a taxi from the west village back to Brooklyn. About to emerge from the Battery Tunnel, I asked the driver to get in the far right lane, which is necessary to take the first exit and pick up the BQE East. Not surprisingly (for any frequent NYC taxi rider), he missed the turn-off and had to pull a multi-lane change in front of a cop in order to take the exit we needed. For a moment, I became upset and raised my voice, before realizing that the taxi driver had matters under control. Afterwards, feeling guilty about my behavior, I struck up a conversation with the driver - something I like to do anyway - that lasted the rest of the ride. It turns out this young man is in the U.S. studying graphic/multi-media video game programming. He is a Pakistani who grew up in Saudi Arabia and also lived in Sydney for four years. His father runs a business in Australia that offered a cushy life for him, but he chose to come to the U.S. to chart his own course. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy is running a hot videogame startup in a few years. Its a cliche, but one I still take for granted sometimes: it pays to treat everyone we encounter with the utmost dignity and respect, always trying to give the benefit of doubt….even when they screw up and make a wrong turn.
Michael Franti waxing poetic on new album
From track no. 8 - Hey Now Now - on Franti’s new album:
Don’t let mistakes be so monumental, and
don’t let your love be so confidential, and
don’t let your mind be so darn judgemental, and
please let your heart be more influential.
Great Eleanor Roosevelt quote
My friend, Marcus Oliver, sent me this quote today. It speaks volumes.
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss
people."
– Eleanor Roosevelt
At Yankees game for Dad’s 60th birthday
Took Dad to the Yankees-Mariners game yesterday for his 60th birthday. It was the first time he had been to Yankee Stadium. I think the last time we went to a ballgame together was April 6, 1992 for the opening of Camden Yards. Before that, it was Pirates-Mets at Three Rivers in the mid-80s when I was the batboy for the Pirates and there was a bench-clearing brawl.
Baseball games in America are the quintessential father-son activity. Few activites create the type of nostalgia, harkening you back to days of yore like an afternoon at the ballpark. Everyone is a kid again at a baseball game, confirmed by the guy in his mid-60s sitting next to us diligently recording the game in his scorebook. After arriving late in the middle of the 2nd inning, my father, the consummate multi-tasker, shut off his cell phone and began to focus some time in the 4th. "Is Jeter third in the lineup?" When confirmed, he added "We’re watching a perfect game so far." Later, when Nick Green was walked in the 6th, he remarked, "they just walked a .157 batter." Needless to say, I was impressed with his baseball astuteness.
In the first few innings, he repeatedly expressed his surprise at the 54,000 out for an afternoon game in the middle of the week - "don’t these people work." Leaving the game, however, his mind considerably calmed, he commented, "I forgot how much fun baseball games are….we should do this more often."
Psychadelic mushrooms tested at Johns Hopkins
The Wall St Journal ran an article today entitled "Go
Ask Alice" on a study conducted by prominent doctors and medical
researchers at Johns Hopkins on the effects of psychedelic mushrooms - aka
psilocybe cubensis. The most interesting takeaway from this
carefully controlled study was the overwhelmingly positive experiences the
majority of participants reported. To quote the WSJ:
A third of the participants said the experience with psilocybin was the
single most significant experience of their lives, and an additional 38% rated
it among their top five such experiences — akin to, say, the birth of a first
child or the death of a parent. This was
the first known study of psychedelic drugs since 1962.
Interesting….
“The Human Behavior Experiments” documentary on Sundance
A few nights ago, I caught a fascinating documentary on the
Sundance Channel entitled The
Human Behavior Experiments that revisits the question of why human beings
commit unethical acts under particular social conditions. It reviews Stanley
Milgram’s famous experiments on obedience to authority in the 1960s as well as
Stanford’s prisoner-guard study in the 1970s and Columbia’s work on group think. The
film is definitely worth the two hour investment for anyone interested in
psychology.